Rebels and Traytors like the rest; and so come at last to keep
them Company, as well in the Place of eternal Misery, as in the Merit of
it, and in a Word, become Devils instead of Angels.

Upon this Discovery, I say, they found it infinitely more for the
Interest of Satan's infernal Kingdom, to go another way to work with
Mankind, and see if it were possible, by the strength of all their
infernal Wit and Counsels, to lay some Snare for him, and by some
Stratagem to bring him to eternal Ruin and Misery.

This being then approv'd as their only Method, (and the _Devil_ shew'd
he was no Fool in the Choice) he next resolv'd that there was no time to
be lost; that it was to be set about immediately, before the Race was
Multiplied, and by that means the Work be not made greater only, but
perhaps the more difficult too; accordingly the diligent Devil went
instantly about it, agreeably to all the Story of _Eve_ and the serpent,
as before; the belief of which, whether historically or allegorically,
is not at all obstructed by this Hypothesis.

I do not affirm that this was the Case at first, because being not
present in that black _Divan_, at least not that I know of, _for who
knows where he was or was not in his pre-existent State?_ I cannot be
positive in the Resolve that past there; but except for some very little
Contradiction, which we find in the sacred Writings, I should, I
confess, incline to believe it Historically; and I shall speak of those
things which I call Contradictions to it more largely hereafter.

In the mean time, be it one way or other, _that is to say_, either that
Satan had no Power to have proceeded with Man by Violence, and to have
destroy'd him as soon as he was made; or that he had the Power, but
chose rather to proceed by other Methods to deceive and debauch him; _I
say_, be it which you please, I am still of the Opinion that it really
was not the _Devil_'s Business to destroy the Species; that it would
have been nothing to the purpose, and no Advantage at all to him, if he
had done it; for that, as above, God could immediately have created
another Species to the same end, whom he either could have made
invulnerable, and not subject to the Devil's Power, or remov'd him out
of _Satan_'s Reach, plac'd him out of the _Devil_'s Ken, in Heaven or
some other Place, where the Devil could not come to hurt him; and that
therefore it is infinitely more his Advantage, and more suited to his
real Design of def